


All In The Follow Through

by IBoatedHere



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, First Date, Fluff, Golfing, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 07:21:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9311354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IBoatedHere/pseuds/IBoatedHere
Summary: “Are you sure you want me to come with you?” Bitty asks, but it’s a moot point by now. They’re already on their way to the driving range. Jack puts his blinker on and takes a left and goes down a street Bitty’s never been on before. “Wouldn’t it be better if Ransom went with you?”“Holster said he’s on the way to becoming a coral reef so I think he’s out.”





	

“Are you sure you want me to come with you?” Bitty asks, but it’s a moot point by now. They’re already on their way to the driving range. Jack puts his blinker on and takes a left and goes down a street Bitty’s never been on before. “Wouldn’t it be better if Ransom went with you?”

“Holster said he’s on the way to becoming a coral reef so I think he’s out.”

“But still. There isn’t anyone else? I mean, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never golfed before.”

When Jack asked him to go golfing with him Bitty half thought it was a chirp. He had laughed it off, not even looking up from the pie he was making and shook his head. Jack had said _“well, okay, you don’t have to”_ and Bitty could swear he felt his heart breaking over how disappointed he sounded.

“It’s not too hard. I can show you.”

The light turns green and Jack looks both ways before he eases his foot off the brake.

“Okay. You can try. Are you sure I’m dressed okay?” Bitty tried to emulate what he’s seen on TV but his khaki shorts might be a bit too short and his sneakers are scuffed and worn from running and the polo shirt he has on is bright orange. Jack is dressed in jeans and a t-shirt but it never really matters with him. Bitty has seen him in athletic shorts and those ghastly yellow sneakers more times than he can count but he still looks _so good_.

Jack doesn’t look over at him but still says “you look fine. It’s really not that big of a deal here.”

Bitty takes that with a grain of salt. Jack doesn’t think it’s a big deal that he calls Wayne Gretzky _Uncle Wayne._

Bitty plays with the hem of his shorts until Jack pulls into a parking lot of a mini golf course, cuts the engine, and opens the doors.

“Wait, Jack,” Bitty scrambles across the center console and Jack hesitates before shutting the door. “I thought you said we were going to a driving range?”

“There’s one around back.”

“Oh lord,” Bitty laughs and flops back in his seat. “This whole time I thought we were going to some fancy country club.”

“Do you think Shitty would let me go to some fancy country club? I’d never hear the end of it. Now let’s go.” He smiles and tips his head to the small building next to the course.

Inside Jack pays for two buckets of golf balls, gently pushing Bitty’s hand down when he produces nine wrinkled ones from his back pocket.

“Jack, I can pay for myself.”

“I asked you to come. My treat.” He thanks the guy behind the counter and grabs both baskets then nods at which clubs Bitty should grab for the both of them.

“Don’t you have your own?” Bitty asks.

“I do, but these are fine. Does that feel okay for you?”

Bitty picks it up and swings it around a little. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Just grab it. We’ll see how you do with it.”

There aren’t a lot of people on the driving range. It’s mostly young kids and families who are just out to have fun and are in playful competition with each other about who can hit it the furthest. Most of them only manage to hit the ball a dozen or so yards with the occasional power hit to the hundred yard line.

He feels a lot better about his chances of not humiliating himself.

Most of the families are grouped together so Jack leads them down to the end of the range where it’s quieter.

“Do you know how to hold the club?”

Bitty has played his fair share of mini golf but he doubts it’s the same.

He shakes his head and Jack slowly shows him how to hold it in his right hand first, then his left, and then how to curl his fingers around it and interlock his pinky into the space between his pointer and middle finger.

Bitty gets confused somewhere in the middle and has to start over.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s okay. We’ll do it again,” he says and Bitty wonders if this is how he was with the kids he coached. Calm and patient but not condescending.

Once Bitty has it Jack smiles.

“See. Not so hard.”

“I haven’t even tried to hit the ball yet.”

“I can help you with that too if you need it.”

Bitty needs help.

He watches Jack’s form, _carefully_ , and tries to copy that.

But Jack consistently hits the ball past the two hundred yard mark and Bitty is lucky to hit the thing at all.

“Keep going, Bittle, you’ll get it,” Jack says as he watches his ball slice through the air. Bitty’s goes three feet off the stand and rolls to a stop.

“Maybe. You’re really good at this.”

“I’ve just been doing it longer.”

“I don’t know. I feel like-” Bitty pauses to swing. This one goes about twenty feet and Jack looks like he’s so proud he could burst. “I feel like you’d be good at any sport you decided to pick up.”

“I’ve only ever played hockey.”

Bitty hums and watches the line of Jack’s shoulders as he draws the club back and swings. It seems to accentuate the way his body narrows at his waist. Bitty knows not to let his eyes wander any further down in public. Most of the time.

“If you went to my daddy’s school he’d try to poach you off the hockey team to the football team. If they had a hockey team.”

“Hockey isn’t that big in Georgia?”

“Not really. It’s certainly nothing compared to football. But then again, nothing really is.”

“What about you? Anything before hockey and figure skating?”

Bitty swings and misses the ball completely. “I was real energetic as a kid so my mama tried to stick me in every sport just so I’d have something to do with it. Nothing really stuck. I did play football for a second.”

Jack twists around to look at him and Bitty busies himself by trying to get the ball on the tee with the head of his club.

“It went about as well as you would’ve expected it to. I was fast and could catch the ball no problem.”

“Isn’t that the whole game?”

“That and tackling. Touch football ends pretty quick down south,” he murmurs and takes another swing. He misses again. “What am I doing wrong here? I’m trying to do what you’re doing and I barely hit the thing.”

“You’re too tense.”

“Of course I’m tense. I’m trying to hit the damn thing and it’s not going anywhere.”

“Relax. Take a deep breath. Don’t grip the club too tight. Keep your arm straight. No, your other arm. Shift your weight once the club starts coming down. Make sure you follow through.”

Bitty tries all of it and none of it works. He taps the club against the turf and huffs out a breath. “Now what?”

“You can do this. It would be easier if I just….showed you.”

Jack rests his club against the divider then steps around to stand behind him.

Every muscle in Bitty’s body tenses as Jack steps in close, presses his chest to his back, and covers Bitty’s hands with his own on the club.

“Your grip is too tight,” Jack says, voice right in Bitty’s ear. He shakes his hands until they loosen up and Jack guides him through the steps again.

Bitty is supposed to keep his left arm straight, which Jack tells him by running his fingertips up and down it until goosebumps form on his skin.

He’s supposed to shift his weight from his back leg as he swings the club. Jack curls his fingers around Bitty’s hip to pull him back and then press him forward.

He’s supposed to follow through. “Don’t stop,” Jack tells him and Bitty suppresses a shiver at the words and the tone. “Keep swinging all the way through. You think you got it?”

Bitty nods dumbly as Jack pulls away. He honestly can’t remember a thing Jack just said. All he knows is that he misses the weight and warmth of Jack pressed up against him.

Jack hops down from Bitty’s space and goes back to his own. “Why don’t you give it a shot?”

Jack talks him through it. He reminds him about his grip and his stance.

Bitty’s eyes are closed when he swings and when he cracks one open he just manages to see his ball land right around the hundred yard marker.

“There you go, Bits!” Jack cheers. “I knew you could do it.”

“Only because you helped me.”

They smile at each other and Jack looks down at Bitty’s basket.

“See how many more you can hit like that.”

Bitty only manages to hit every third or so ball like that but Jack praises him each time. It’s a thrill.

He works his way through the golf balls and leans against the wooden fence behind the platforms and unabashedly watches Jack take swing after swing.

Somewhere between Jack bending over to place the ball on the tee and standing up Bitty decides golf is the best sport ever.

They return the empty buckets and clubs and Jack lingers by the start of the mini golf course. 

“Do you want to?”

“Wha-mini golf? Really?”

“Yeah. I think we earned it.”

“Okay, but I’m paying.”

Bitty doesn’t pay. Jack beats him to it and then laughs when Bitty stamps his foot and guides him with a hand on the small of his back so he can pick out what color ball he wants. 

He grabs the yellow one. Jack gets red. 

Bitty becomes less and less salty the the more it becomes apparent that Jack is terrible at mini golf.

The windmill is supposed to be a Par 4 but on Jack’s eighth swing Bitty pulls him aside to let a family play through. Their toddler manages to get it through the windmill blades on her second try. 

“Ridiculous,” Jack mumbles under his breath and Bitty laughs.

“You’re hittin’ it too hard. All that power, you gotta learn how to soften up.”

“I know how to putt, Bittle. Just not against a windmill.”

“Can I tweet that?”

“Whatever makes you happy, Bittle,” he says sullenly and Bitty pulls him to his feet. 

“C’mon, Mr. Zimmermann. Don’t give up.” He stands in front of Jack as he perfects his stance. The look on his face is one of 110% concentration. “Soft and time it right. Wait until the blade goes past the opening and then swing.”

Jack lets it complete three full turns before he takes the shot. When it sails right through the looks on his face breaks out into a smile and Bitty is clapping one moment then throwing his arms around Jack’s neck in the next. 

Jack catches him easily with one strong arm braced against his back. Jack swings him around with the force of the momentum and puts his back on his feet but doesn’t let him go.

“Told you you could do it.” It’s just a faint whisper because they’re so close There’s just a thin rim of blue around Jack’s dilated eyes. 

Someone coughs behind them and Bitty turns to see a couple of nervous looking teenagers obviously out on a date.

“Sorry,” Bitty squeaks as Jack lets him go. “We’ll be out of your way in one second. You got this, Jack?”

Jack doesn’t look away from Bitty. “I hope so.”

They make their way through the rest of the holes. Jack only has trouble on the one where he has to hit the ball through the loop. He alternates between hitting it too hard and shooting it off the green and not hitting it hard enough so it get halfway up the loop then rolls back. 

Bitty wins and tries not to gloat and fails miserably. 

He holds the score card up and asks Jack “can I frame this? This is the one piece of proof that I have that for one moment I was better than Jack Zimmermann at _something_.”

“You’re better at a lot of thing,” he tells him as he returns the club to the guy behind the counter. Bitty scoffs and Jack leads him through the parking lot. “You’re better at baking and you’re a lot friendlier.”

“You are very polite, Jack.”

“You’re different. You’re brighter.” 

Bitty’s not sure what to say. He just lets himself be led towards Jack’s car with Jack’s hand on his back. 

“So, do you want to head back to the Haus or…”

Bitty gives him a sideways glance. “Or?”

“Or we could get coffee or frozen yogurt or just…I don’t know.”

“I could go for some yogurt but I’m paying.”

“No way,” Jack tells him as he opens Bitty’s door. “My treat.”

“Jack, you can’t just throw your money away like this.”

“I’m not throwing it away. We had fun, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, but-.”

“How about I pay this time and you can pay next time.”

“Next time?”

“If you want to.”

Bitty’s hand darts out to Jack’s shoulder. “I want to.”

Jack gives him a small smile. 

“Good. I want to, too.” 


End file.
